Three Words
by Kitten Kisses
Summary: I love you. Three little words that are an open invitation for love. But Remus has three little words of his own that he uses, not to invite love, but to keep it at bay. Remus, Tonks, Sirius. Complete!
1. Part I: Introduction

**Title: **Three Words**  
>Characters: <strong>Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, with appearances by Sirius Black and Molly Weasley.**  
>Genre: <strong>Introspection, Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort.**  
>Words: <strong>513 (Part I of V)**  
>Notes:<strong> Dedicated to ThisLoveHasNoCeiling for being generally awesome and fun to talk to. Thanks for the warm welcome to the fandom! Told in five parts. (The entire story is already finished.)

* * *

><p><em>Too old.<em>  
><em>Too poor.<em>  
><em>Too dangerous.<em>

Three little words.

They are not quite the opposite of _I love you_; hate is a word stronger than love, and so love's only true opposite is indifference, because it hurts more to be viewed indifferently by the object of your affections than it does to be hated.

Remus would know.

He has been hated by so many in his life that at least hate is something discernable, something understandable. He can cope with hate.

It's indifference he can't stand, because it blurs the line between love and hate, hovering somewhere just between _I don't know you so I can't make a fair judgment_, and _I don't want to know you at all_.

Maddening is how it feels to simply not know what another person's intentions are. Perhaps they smile at you now and again, perhaps they wink or blush or stammer because of your words…but that might mean nothing. Are they enamored? Simply being polite? Their mind can be changed by the twitch of a finger, by a gaze that lingers for too long, by the words that are spoken, whether they are understood as they are intended to be or not.

* * *

><p>Many years ago, Remus liked the idea of fantasies. Hogwarts was, in its entirety, nothing short of a fantasy. The idea of things being carefree and wonderful was appealing. But when it all came crashing down, he felt as if he'd died, gone to Heaven, and been forced to return to Earth.<p>

Remus decided that he did not like fantasies anymore.

So he stopped dwelling on them, and he planted his feet firmly in the Real World, where people died, and betrayal happened no matter how well you thought you knew someone, and people like Remus would spend the rest of their lives making feeble—or wholehearted, or desperate—attempts to survive.

* * *

><p>It is not a happy world, but at least he knows where it stands. Where <em>he<em> stands.

And whenever necessary, he reaches into the back of his mind and pulls out those three little words.

Not _I love you_.

But _old, poor, dangerous_, because all three are true and realistic and solid: provable, understandable.

There will never be a menagerie of hidden meanings in _his_ three little words, but a person might mean a million things by saying _I love you_, such as: _I think I love you_, or _I want you_, or even, _I'm feeling frisky tonight and will say anything to get you into my bed_.

So _old, poor,_ and_ dangerous_ are not _quite_ the opposite of _I love you_, because they are excuses not to admit love, rather than an admission of not loving someone, of feeling indifference. They are Remus's idea of indifference, as close as he'll ever get, because he's never truly been confessed to by a girl he didn't feel _something_ for. He's never had to say, "I don't feel that way about you."

Instead he tells them he is too old, or too poor, or too dangerous.

Instead, he makes excuses.

Truthful excuses, but excuses nonetheless.


	2. Part II: Too Old

**Title: **Three Words**  
>Characters: <strong>Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks**  
>Genre: <strong>Romance, Introspection, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship**  
>Words: <strong>584 (for part ii)**  
>Notes: <strong>Part II of V. In this installment, we learn a little bit about our first word, "old". The other chapters are longer, and this is because there isn't much to be said about the word _old_. It can't be changed, or altered, and neither, I feel, can Remus's perception of himself concerning the word. He will always feel much older than his age, not just because of how he looks, but because of how he has lived his life.

* * *

><p>The first time Remus had to push someone away, it had been in his seventh year. <em>"I'm too old,"<em> he'd said softly to the third-year who'd blushed and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"He was quite undone by her," Sirius said conversationally to Molly and Tonks and Bill.

They laughed.

He did not award Sirius with a flush of embarrassment. He simply said, "I was too old for her."

"I don't think many seventeen-year-old boys would find a thirteen-year-old attractive," Bill chuckled.

Remus nodded in agreement, though it was not entirely the truth in his case. He might have given her a chance, had circumstances been different. But he wouldn't dare say it. She had been cute, and she had been attracted to him.

Why, he didn't know. But she had been.

_Too old_.

"I don't agree," Tonks said suddenly, shifting in her seat to turn slightly-narrowed eyes on the oldest Weasley boy. "That's only a four-year difference. My Muggle grandparents were at least ten years apart."

"Were?" Sirius asked, curiously.

Her eyes flickered down to settle on the table's surface before she shifted uncomfortably. "They died a few years ago," she said. "Well, she did. It didn't take, well…long for…"

Molly clapped her hands to break the uncomfortable moment and gave Tonk's shoulder a squeeze as she gathered dishes up to send to the sink. "Who's up for dessert?" she asked cheerfully.

* * *

><p>"Did you really think you were too old for her?" Tonks asked him later, in the library, in a harsh whispering sort of voice that didn't really make an ounce of sense.<p>

He couldn't help but let his forehead crinkle in confusion. "What?"

"The third-year. In the story Sirius was telling."

Remus debated on whether or not to answer truthfully, but he hated to lie, and so he spoke the truth, letting his forefinger slip into his book to mark his place. "Yes," he said.

"But it's only four years," Tonks said, sounding so disbelieving that it made Remus wonder at the tone. "What's four years in the long run?"

"I don't count age in years," he countered gently.

"Do you count it in full moons?" she asked suddenly, and flushed crimson as soon as she realized she'd said it. "I mean… Bloody hell, Remus, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Something like that," he answered in as casual a voice as he could. It wasn't particularly hurtful to hear her say it—he had, after all, heard much worse when the owls found him after his resignation from Hogwarts—but it was…so close to the mark that he wondered for a moment if she knew him better than he thought she did.

"I guess that makes sense." Her voice was meek. "I can see why someone might measure age by experience instead of a day that comes once a year."

He started to nod his head when she cut him off.

"But I can tell you're younger than you look."

And with a wink, she took her leave of him.

* * *

><p>Later that evening, when Remus retired for the night, he glanced into the mirror. Grey hair hadn't happened overnight. There had been one, then two, then a hundred.<p>

He studied his reflection for a long moment, taking in the lines on his face, lines drawn by pain and worry and loss, the grey in his hair, the puckering of whiteish-pink scars, and he gave a mirthless smile.

_Finally_, he thought.

_Finally, I look as old as I feel_.


	3. Part III: Too Poor

**Title: **Three Words**  
>Characters: <strong>Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black**  
>Genre:<strong> Friendship, Introspection, Romance**  
>Words: <strong>1,330**  
>Notes: <strong>People often dismiss Remus's second word as if it really isn't important, but if you've ever been unemployed for a period of time, you know and understand better than the average person how that makes you feel as a contributing member of society. Remus's "too poor" is just as important as his other two words, and is, in my opinion, the second most important of the three of them.

* * *

><p>Poverty had not been born with Remus. Instead, Remus had been the one to bring poverty to his family.<p>

His mother owned a small café. His father worked for the Ministry of Magic: Werewolf Capture Unit.

The irony—or perhaps, lack thereof—did little to amuse anyone who knew the Lupin family.

Remus remembered very little before the age of five. Rather normal for anyone, except that for him, it was hard to remember anything before the bite.

After five, he remembered everything.

And sometimes, late at night, he would hear snippets of conversation, things he'd heard when he was still a child.

"_Now you'll know what it's like," Greyback said. "You'll know what it's like to see your _child_ transform into a_ _disgusting beast." The last word was spat out like sour milk. Greyback had still been…human, then, with blue eyes and hair that looked clean._

_"And you thought you were so clever," his mother yelled one night after Remus was supposed to be asleep, "naming him that! Now his name is nothing but some kind of cruel, sick joke!"_

_"We've no choice," the men said, shaking their heads. Remus stood at the top of the stairs that overlooked the café and peered through the railings. "Now that your own son… well…it just wouldn't be right, you see… Terribly sorry, John."_

And Remus Lupin, whose name had been intended to be fun and interesting, whose very world had turned upside-down within a single night, watched the world of his parents come tumbling down, too.

* * *

><p>Remus hated birthdays, Christmas—Remus hated any holiday that demanded gift-giving. A few times in his childhood, his parents scraped up some kind of gift for him, but Remus knew they did without to manage it, and that hurt more than second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand) robes and trousers and toys.<p>

He'd rather they have a nice meal out together than spend their money on a trinket for him, something he wanted now, but wouldn't give two damns about five years later.

* * *

><p>He was fifteen when he realized that things would never be easy for him. No matter what career path he chose, no matter who his friends were, he would forever be toeing the line between homeless and living in poverty.<p>

Who would knowingly hire a _werewolf_?

Sirius and James and Peter liked to joke about Remus's _furry little problem_, but the problem was not little, and the older Remus got, the more he despised his problem and all the trouble it brought him. It was easy for his friends to joke about it—James, who lived off of the fortune of his parents, Sirius, who had extra money to blow, Peter, who had always been more clever than he would admit to being.

"Cheer up, Remus," Lily said to him once, shortly before her death. "I'm sure you'll find something."

But even her words were empty, because the only work Remus had ever been able to find was of the unpaid variety.

* * *

><p>John Lupin died from guilt, or so the rumor went. Not many people knew that it was true.<p>

The grave was nothing more than a hole in the ground, a hole with dirt and a sparkling pink rock that Remus had found in the woods during one of his many walks.

It was a quiet summer day when Tonks found him there. She looked at the wildflowers that drooped in the heat, and then looked at Remus and gave a strained smile.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, forgoing her usual cheerful greeting. Despite her up-and-at-'em attitude, she always did try to be tactful, for which Remus was grateful.

He picked at the grass that grew over the grave and gave a little shrug. "Quite all right," he answered, half-glad to be pulled out of his private thoughts, glad to see Tonks, because she was so different from him that her very presence made him feel…real. As if life might be more than dreary days and scattered nightmares.

She stared at the rock, perhaps understanding its significance, and cleared her throat after a moment to say, her voice sounding somewhat regretful, "Dumbledore's called a meeting."

He nodded and when she didn't leave, he began to wonder what she might be thinking, having happened upon a man nearing 40 years old sitting cross-legged in the grass pulling on the blades, kept company by only a rock.

"Everyone dies of something," he said when the silence in the presence of another person became too much. He'd never told anyone this, before, but it felt…right, somehow, to tell Tonks. Maybe because she was standing there, with her hair windswept and orange, and he thought, for just an instant, that she was not the type to judge anyone.

"My father died of guilt." Left unsaid, he thought, _I killed him_.

She crouched down beside him, let a hand rest on his shoulder.

Strange, he thought, that in the heat, her warm hand still felt nice.

She gave his shoulder a squeeze.

He did not tell her that she had squeezed his original bite, where the skin puckered and remained fresh and pink even after more than thirty years.

"It wasn't his fault," Remus said, looking straight ahead.

"We don't always know the impact our words will have," she said softly, and then flushed when he craned his neck to look at her. "Sirius told me," she said to explain how she knew the story of his bite.

He chose not to comment on it. Maybe it was for the best that she knew.

"I think," she began when the silence stretched on because Remus did not know what to say to her, "that you are not the type to place blame on anyone but yourself."

"Sometimes, there is no one else," he said, not bitterly, or sadly, but frankly. _When all your friends are dead in one way or another, _he did not say, _you can only blame yourself._

She stood, giving his back something between a rub and a pat. "Seven o'clock," she said, not arguing with him, not responding, simply chewing on his words. He could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking, wondering, puzzling him out.

* * *

><p>"Remus," Sirius said one evening, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of firewhisky and his eyes far away. "You remember that Christmas when I bought you that broomstick?"<p>

Remus smiled. "Yes," he said. "It was very much appreciated."

"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "I thought—I mean, I didn't understand, then, how that hurt you."

"And now you do?" His voice was laced with something akin to surprise.

"We're both fugitives now, Moony, in our own way," he said.

And for the second time in his life, Remus thought about how it hurt more to have it all only to lose it than it did to never have it to begin with. Yes, he supposed, Sirius did understand that part of him a bit better than most, for Sirius had grown up with everything, and here he was, in a house he hated, an unjustly accused criminal, drinking from old alcohol stores and without a sickle to his name.

It had always been Remus and Peter, Sirius and James. Strange that now Remus and Sirius could understand one another best.

"That we are," he found himself agreeing as he gazed into the murky dark liquid inside his mug where a twisted version of his reflection stared back at him.

"You were," Sirius said, his voice slurring a little from the drink or perhaps something else, "always one. I'm just… I'm sorry. I didn't know. I just didn't know."

And Remus smiled and chuckled a bit and tried to pretend that Sirius was being sentimental, but the burning in his chest and behind his eyes betrayed his own feelings to himself.

_Finally_, he thought, staring at the wood grain pattern on the table, _someone sees it for what it truly is_.


	4. Part IV: Too Dangerous

**Title: **Three Words**  
>Characters: <strong>Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks**  
>Genre: <strong>Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection**  
>Words: <strong>1,561**  
>Notes: <strong>"Too dangerous" has to be the most overlooked of all three of Remus's words. Or at least, it seems that way, sometimes, because "Tonks doesn't care" and all that. But in reality, do you really think Remus would say it if there wasn't any truth in it?

* * *

><p>The dreams of a werewolf were often violent.<p>

Sometimes, he dreamed of James, or of Sirius, or of Peter, sometimes of his parents, and other times of Molly and Arthur Weasley, their children, the Longbottoms, and others he had known in the past. He dreamed of his parents losing everything they owned because of what their son had become. He dreamed of James dying, believing Remus to be untrustworthy. He dreamed of Sirius, tortured endlessly in the dank, dark prison of Azkaban with the knowledge that he hadn't done anything wrong except trust too much. He dreamed of Peter, and all the things he might have said or done to make Peter into the traitor that he turned out to be.

But most often, Remus dreamed of Tonks, maybe because she was young, because she was a strange sort of pretty, because she talked to him and touched his arm without thinking anything of it. But when he dreamed of her sitting on the edge of the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place, dreamed of her in her work robes sleeping by the fireplace in the library, dreamed of her fully clothed or wearing nothing all, he knew that the dreams would end with her blood on the ground and her flesh ripped and torn.

He would wake as her life slipped away, bit by bit, her eyes dilated in fear and in pain, and the cause of her pain, of her hurt, of her _death_, was him. It felt so real sometimes that he could swear the coppery taste of blood was on his breath, could swear that it was real, that it had actually happened. And when the sunlight streamed into the room and fell over his bed, he stumbled to the shower to turn the water on hot to ease his trembling.

* * *

><p>He could have died as a child. Sometimes, Remus still wonders if his parents would have had an easier life if he had died instead of being turned. Life had always been a fragile sort of thing, and Remus did not realize how fragile until James and Lily met their end.<p>

In a single night, two of the people closest to Remus died. Shortly afterward, Sirius and Peter likewise vanished, Peter the traitor, Sirius the innocent, but back then it had been the other way around.

With his father already dead, Remus wondered if he was destined to lose everyone that he let get close to him. Sirius, the only one that Remus hadn't been very close to, was in Azkaban. A cruel twist of fate, he decided one night, drowning his sorrows in a weak tea made of a thrice-used teabag because he lacked the money to buy alcohol, that the traitor lived while the others lay dead in their graves.

* * *

><p>He felt much the same to see Sirius vanish behind the Veil.<p>

A cruel twist of fate, he thought, that Peter, the true traitor, was alive, while Sirius and James and Lily—and so many others—had lost their lives.

* * *

><p>In the days following Sirius's death, Remus took shifts at St. Mungo's to watch over Tonks as she recovered, not because he took particular pleasure in doing so, but because he was the only Order member without a job and therefore somewhere more important to be.<p>

Tonks was silent while she slept; he was grateful for the time to just _think_, and he thought that at least _she_ wasn't dead, though she'd come too close for his own comfort, and he wondered if maybe she'd gotten too close to _him_ just like all the others had, because seeing her in her natural state all the time made him worry.

She had always moved, changed hairstyles and colours like clockwork, and to see her suddenly not moving, not changing… It was unnerving, proof that something was not right in the world.

And he allowed himself a moment to care. Her skin was cool and soft, except where it wasn't, and the longer he watched her sleep, the more he realized and understood that this was _Tonks_ he was looking at, as naked and as exposed as he'd ever seen her.

He'd never seen the scar above her lip before, or the smattering of reddened skin on her forehead, or that crooked nose with a few freckles scattered over it, and her hair, usually so vibrant a shade, was an ordinary brown.

He averted his eyes, wondering if perhaps he was seeing something he shouldn't be. It was silly, he knew, to feel as if he'd seen something _wrong_, when she was wearing a loose gown and blankets were pulled up to her chin. But still, her scars, her acne, her nose: these were things she kept hidden from other people, and here he was, looking at them as if he'd been given permission.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry about Sirius," Tonks said quietly after they'd seen Harry home from King's Cross Station.<p>

Her flat was small and cramped, with bookshelves in the corners and records piled up haphazardly, clothes folded in stacks that would not fit in the bureau or the closet, the walls surprisingly blank. He turned back to her and gave her something like a smile.

"Me, too," was all he could think to say, because he was also sorry about Sirius's sudden, untimely death.

If only the man hadn't been so _brash…_

"I think I should say that I kind of feel it's partly my fault," she began, but he cut her off with a twitch of his fingers and a particularly hard swallow.

If Sirius had not come along…then perhaps she would have…

(He was not sure how he felt about that.)

"I thought you were, at first. Dead, I mean." He set his chipped mug down and let his gaze hold hers. "I saw you fall, and I thought—I didn't think Bellatrix would leave you there if you weren't finished. If she weren't…" He hadn't realized it would be so hard to say. "Finished with you."

"Bellatrix," she said dryly, "does not like to leave anything unfinished." Her nails tapped on the countertop as her feet rocked back and forth against the rungs of the stool she sat upon. "But still, I—"

"You didn't trip," he told her, his voice soft and kind. "You were attacked."

"I _lost,_ Remus. And _because_ I lost, Sirius—because I lost, he… It could have been _anyone_." She paused. "It could have been you."

It could have been Harry, too, he almost said, but managed to stop himself before the words could leap from his tongue. He looked at her, mouth ajar for a moment, before he shook his head. "Perhaps it would have been better if it had," he said, "been me. Instead of Sirius."

He doubted that Harry would have tried to run through the Veil to get to his old Defense teacher, even if he did like and respect him. The thought was almost amusing. He didn't have any family, had few enough friends. At least if Sirius could be proven innocent…he could be with Harry again, could find work, could live his life.

"Please don't say that," Tonks said, and her voice was such a plaintive sound he could have sworn she hadn't been the one to speak. "I don't wish it had been someone else. I just wish none of it had happened at all. I could never forgive myself if it had been you, instead. I just wish…"

He knew what her unspoken words were.

"_I wish it had been me."_

He'd thought them many times, himself, in the past, wishing it had been him instead of James, him instead of his father… Just _him_ _instead of._

But how curious, he thought, that she would be unable to forgive herself if it had been him killed instead of Sirius.

"But can you forgive yourself now?" he found himself asking her.

She looked down at the countertop and shrugged a little, letting only the sound of the wind through the window screens be heard. "I don't know," she finally admitted, looking over at him, defeat written so thoroughly across her features that it startled him. "How do you forgive yourself for letting someone else die in your place? It should have been m—"

"No!" he shouted, and he didn't flinch when she jumped at the sound. "No, don't say that. Please."

He didn't know why he said it, only that he had to stop her train of thought, because it was so close to his own that it hurt. She was young, and beautiful—even when she wasn't morphed, he thought—and she should think happier thoughts. She shouldn't dwell on what might have happened, on what she could have done differently.

"It's the truth," she said, her voice a mere whisper.

His hand curled around her wrist. "Sirius knew what he was getting into," he told her. "It wasn't your fault."

But he was thinking to himself, _You shouldn't have let Sirius come. You should have stepped in. You should have taken that hit for Sirius, because he had a godson and a house and people who loved—love—him. And a bank account._

She shifted her arm so that her fingers could slip through his, and then she lifted his hand to her face, resting her cheek against the back of his palm as her eyes fell closed. "Sometimes it's hard not to feel that it is," she told him.

He knew exactly how she felt.


	5. Part V: Ending

**Title: **Three Words**  
>Characters: <strong>Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks  
><strong>Genre: <strong>Romance, Introspection, Friendship  
><strong>Words: <strong>660  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I almost forgot to post this. The final (and rather short and sweet) chapter.

* * *

><p>Love was not something that Remus understood well. There had been many people he cared about in his lifetime, and Remus was not the sort of person to feel a light, lingering affection.<p>

He either felt it or he didn't, and if he did, he did not let it go.

It was strange, he thought, that such a feeling could warp and twist into hurt and pity where Peter was concerned, a lingering fondness for the Weasleys, trust with Sirius, and something indefinable with Tonks.

* * *

><p>"Remus, wait!" she said just before he turned to disapparate. She came to stand by him, her face flushed and her eyes full. "Before you go," she struggled to say, "I just… I want to…"<p>

She reached out and wrapped her arms around him, holding him closer than he thought anyone had ever held him before. It was different. After being shunned by the majority of society for his entire adult life, here was this young witch with her arms wrapped firmly around him, pressing her face into him.

Confused and conflicted, he gave her a small squeeze in return before she pulled away just far enough to kiss him.

"Be safe," she whispered, and kissed him again. "Be safe…"

* * *

><p>He'd tried his three words on her, tried them over and over again, as she was the one he met with for brief periods during his underground mission to turn the werewolves to Dumbledore's side.<p>

But she wouldn't listen to him.

Didn't she understand what he meant? Or did she honestly, truly not care?

* * *

><p>"I love you, Remus," she said to him after her display in the hospital wing of Hogwarts.<p>

He noticed a long cut that ran down her arm, but he did not comment on it. Instead, he sat down beside her, feeling a tumult of emotions that he couldn't put a name to.

He didn't say _I know_, even though he did know. Nor did he say, _I'm afraid to love, because everyone who gets close to me ends up dead, _even though it was the truth.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her, held her as tightly as he dared, held her close and didn't dare let go, even when her tears spilled over and mingled with his, and he kissed her and wondered just exactly what it was he was doing, sitting in a dark corridor of the castle with Dumbledore dead and the world a mess.

"I'm too old," he said, his finger pressing against her lips to ensure that she listened to every word, "because I probably won't live very long, and I've been through more, I've _seen_ more, than most. I'm too poor, because I will always be poor, and I make everyone around me poor. I'm too dangerous, because loving me will ruin your life, will leave you as shunned by society as I am. I—"

"I don't care, Remus," she said.

He took in her limp brown hair, the acne across her forehead, and her crooked nose with the freckles smattered across the bridge, and he thought, for an instant, _I believe you_.

"I want what's best—"

"We always want what's best for those we love," she told him, tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks.

And it was, with a sudden jolt, that he realized something.

He loved her.

Three big words came to his mind, then.

Not, _Old, poor, dangerous_, for they were little words used to keep bigger words (words that someone old and poor and dangerous might be afraid to speak) at bay.

Remus, emboldened by his newfound understanding, pulled her against him and kissed her salty cheek.

"I love you, too," he said, and as the words left his lips, he felt the weight on his heart lighten.

And he understood, in that moment, that _I love you_ did not have to come with hidden meanings or secrets. It could mean exactly what it says.


End file.
